We had a great time! Tammy and I got an early start on Thursday because she left work earlier than she expected to, so we were on the road a little before 6 PM. We started the trip with The Dixie Chicks in the CD player. We were so excited! We had SNACKS! We had MUSIC! We had the anticipation of an AWESOME TRIP!

By 10:30 we were eating dinner in Eugene, OR. I HAD MY FIRST PEPSI IN 6 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!! It was more delicious than I remembered. This was my weekend to treat myself. We also hadta gas up and eat and decide if we felt like pushing ourselves or settling in for the night. We grabbed one of those rinky-dink hotel coupon books they have sitting in the cardboard stands near the newspapers – called a hotel that was about 2 1/2 hours MORE south than Eugene and decided that MEDFORD, OR would be where we spent the night. We got about 4 hours of sleep and hit the road again.

As we were driving through the dark of night…speeding WAAAAY too fast, we noticed something that we thought was going to be the GREATEST SIGN OF ALL TIME THAT WE WERE GOING TO WIN MONEY!!!! Can you see that? I was going 77 miles an hour and my mileage on my new car hit 7777!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY SHIT! Also…it was 11:49 pm. We were basically giddy anyway. It didn’t take much to put us over the edge.

For those of you that don’t know…I enjoy writing on the windows of my vehicles when I take a road trip. This one was no exception!

The only problem was, it was raining the entire time we were driving on Thursday, so I brought my MEGA CRAYOLA WINDOW MARKERS with us in the hopes that when we woke up in Southern Oregon, the weather would have taken a turn for the better.

We woke up the next morning – well, TAMMY woke up…I didn’t seem to sleep at all. I’m like a little kid sometimes! We got up, dressed, primped and packed and in about an hour we were off again! Well, lucky for us…IT STOPPED RAINING!!!!! While Tammy was hitting the office to take advantage of whatever rinky-dink continental breakfast they offered, I was busy with my markers. Above the squiggly yellow line it says, “HELLO GORGEOUS!!” Among other things, we had a Follow Us on Twitter message, a WILL WAVE FOR HONKS message, BUCKLE UP, WE LOVE YOU message…and a few silly others.

Here we are…getting ready for another ass-numbing ride in the car…this time, we aren’t pulling off the road till we’re there! COME HELL OR HIGH WATER!!!!!!!!

We jumped in the car and AWAAAAAAAAAYYYY We GO!!

After hitting the road, I quickly realized that I didn’t quite exactly review the directions before we left the hotel parking lot, and well……I got on I-5…heading south….and uh….I should have headed north about 3 measly exits. I wanted to fill up with gas, and there was an exit ahead about 2 miles, so we just continued on. Once we got there and filled the tank, I kinda sorta forgot to look at them AGAIN, and continued south…*shrugs* Who cares?!? I actually printed out TWO versions of directions…the short way and the longer more SCENIC route, in case Tammy wanted to see Mt. Shasta on the way there. So, basically, I gave her no choice. It only added another HOUR to the trip…and if we hadn’t taken the detour, we would never have gotten the awesome pictures that she took…so it was meant to be!

South to Redding, California it was! Tammy had never been much south of the Oregon/California border, so she was squealing pretty much the entire time…which…was fun/annoying, but then again, I can be pretty annoying too, what with being able to sing just about any song that comes on the radio/CD. Some of the stuff I was signing I haven’t heard in 25 years. I must be like a Musical Rainman or something because I was even impressing MYSELF!

So, let’s fast forward to when we hit Redding, California! All of a sudden Tammy got really doubtful of my navigational capabilities. And she has this cell phone, powered by Sprint – which gets no EFFING signal 99% of the time, and she whips it out and decides she’s gonna pull up the GPS. And it’s telling us we’re off course and telling us to get back on the freeway, and I’m all, “Dude, the stuff I printed out say to head through Redding and then we’ll get on a highway that heads EAST. We gotta head East at SOME POINT…” and she was all, “It doesn’t LOOK RIGHT!” and I was all…”Let’s just SEE where it takes us, because I’m fairly certain if we continue going SOUTH we’ll end up in MEXICO, and there aren’t any CASINO’S down there and I’m getting the CRAZY EYE!!!!!!!!!!!!” So, we went on our merry little way. We see the turn off that says Highway 44 East. SUH-WEET! IN YO’ FACE HOLMES!!!!!!!!!!!!! I did a little happy dance/I told you so dance, and then she had to pee. PERFECT! *rolls eyes*

I can hold it for HOURS! I’m like a fricken CAMEL…Tammy on the other hand has a bladder the size of a thimble and she takes one sip of water and WHAMMO!!! She’s all, “GIRRRRRRRRLLLLLLL! I gots ta PEE!!!!!!!” So we stop at the next rest stop, do our THANG, hope back in the car and get gas at the next gas station we see, and head up and over the “Siskyou” mountain range. Very pretty…very road constructiony….very…uh…ROAD KILLY!!!

So we’re driving up and over the mountains and we’re jammin to some Dixie Chicks travelling at about 77 miles an hour still because I decided that was the lucky speed to be traveling and……and this squirrel the size of a Wiener Dog runs into the road, stops, looks at me, does a stutter step to the left, a stutter step to the right, takes about 4 little squirrely steps………………….and………………….uh – THUNK THUNK THUNK THUD THUNK…………………..I killed that little sucker! I can’t believe it STILL! I’ve never hit ANYTHING! DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tammy threw her hands over her mouth. I threw ONE hand over my mouth! “HOLY SHIT! I JUST KILLED THAT SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!!!!” Tammy is like screaming her head off and I was all, “Holy shit! DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!?!? He like ran out in the middle of the road and tried to turn back, then realized he was already too committed and turned to keep going, then turned back to look at me and then kinda decided to just go and WHAMMO!!!!!!!!”…Tammy said, “YOU MURDERER!!!!!!!!!!”….

As I sat there, still going 77, that THUNKING kinda just kept echoing in my head. I kept replaying it over and over, if there was something I could have done differently…but DUDE! I was going SEVENTY-SEVEN MILES AN HOUR! If I had jerked the steering wheel to avoid him, I could have flipped the car, FIRST OF ALL. SECONDLY, there was like a CLIFF on the right! Basically, it was HIM or ME!!!!!! And then the Elton John song ran through my head from the Lion King – The Circle of Life. And I decided that I was just helping the vultures and crows and all the other scavengers live high on the hog that day. Then I said a little prayer for the Lord not to give me back luck, because let’s face it…he created squirrels too! And it was OBVIOUS I felt really REALLY bad, except…I kinda sorta started laughing shortly after the THUNKING stopped, because…if I hadn’tve started laughing, I might have started crying…and well? Who wants to see a grown CARM cry?!? NOT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s all for now. More later or tomorrow. I have lots to do still. LOVE YOU!